Catching my balance.

July 2006

30 July 2006

Last night was the closing of Capital and Visual Fringe, and I went to see the Cheeky Monkey Sideshow-- one of the final perforamces of the festival. I've been so mad busy that it ended up being the only performance of the festival that I caught.

It was entertaining. I'd seen almost all of the performers before in other shows, but they put on a good show. But I was also completely distracted by a couple sitting in the front row, and not far from where I was sitting. She was wearing undergarments. As outer garments. Or, since I don't think she had anything on underneath them, as only garments. That would be a bustier a la Madonna in the Like a Virgin video (and being able to make this comparison based on my recollection of the video from when it was new on MTV makes me feel old), and a slip. A slip with lacy edges. But a slip. The kind of thing you put on under your skirt both to make it so that you can't see the dots on your underpants, and also to keep your skirt from getting all static clingy with your pantyhose. Remember when we used to wear pantyhose? Jesus, am I glad that it has become okay to shun those things. Even if it has been more than six weeks since I had my legs waxed.... I need to make an appointment....

Right. So undergarments as onlygarments. And heeled clear plastic jelly flip flops. She also had some really rad cat eye rhinestone glasses. I've always wanted a pair for my regular glasses. But whenever I see a pair in a vintage shop and try them on I'm reminded that I looked bloody awful in cat eye glasses, rhinestones or no. She was pulling them off, though, even if her outfit was distracting me. But her outfit was not half as distracting as her man. Who was very loud. And when entreated, for the calmness of WolfGirl, to pipe down, he became louder. People were looking.

I mean, I'm not really one to care if people are looking. (See here.) But we are talking about a theater full of people who have paid to see something called the Cheeky Monkey Sideshow. Like the New Vaudeville and the New Burlesque, New Sideshow combines both the real thing (laying on beds of nails, swordswallowing, hammering nails into one's nose) with the knowing fun-poking stuff at the hokey-ness of sideshows past (the WolfGirl sings a jazz ballad). In short, this is a room full of people who aren't the people are looking kind. And they were looking.

When the fire eater came out he really lost it. No longer able to control himself, every time her tongue touched flame he moaned like he was just on the verge of orgasm. "mmmmmMMMMMMM....oh yeah..... mmmmmmMMMMMMM.....uuuuuuuhhhhhhh.... yeahyeahyeah....yeah.... oh baby...." Yowzers. Perhaps he has a sideshow fetish? It was a little weird being brought into someone else's fetish, you know, without there being a conversation about it. I mean, is there a safety word?

24 July 2006

This weekend I discovered that while being hung over is The Suck (and is something that has become exponentially harder to bear the older I get), adding food poisoning to it is really really really bad. For a while I couldn't even keep down water, and laid in bed staring at the ceiling thinking, "this is how people die of dehydration." Of course, this also meant that I couldn't keep the advil down that might have helped my pounding head, so it wasn't just that I had to deal with a GI revolution, but that I was also forced to endure all of the hangover symptoms in their full glory. On the upside, I finally watched those netflix movies that I've had around the house for a looooong time and was able to send them back... wheeee!

This morning I found all of my email accounts barraged with spam... In one mailbox there was an email with the subject line "nuclear reactor expenses." In another was one with the suject line, "DEAR BELOVED IN CHRIST!!!!!!!!" in which I am entreated to help her-- in the name of Jesus!-- move her ninety bazillion dollars around by letting her raid my bank account. (The Jesus angle is a new one for me). And in the last one there was one from Mr. Amadou Habib, who got my "contact in strict confidence through Senegal Chamber of Commerce." Because I have all those connections in the Senegal Chamber of Commerce. Here is what he has to say:

"I would Honestly want to seek for an immediate assistance from you, I have $12.5 Million US dollars belonging to my late Father Mr Habib Mohammad, who was held bondage by the Rebels during the crisis and was letter killed."

"I mean, I'm just trying to be professional... I'll tell you the truth, though. Sometimes I curse, I admit it."

"Yeah?"

"I tell you, I can't restrain myself sometimes... I am put over the edge by their incompentancy."

(Other woman laughs)

"You know who I'm talking about, too. You know, she was in your division for a while. Mmmmm-hmmmmm.... I'll tell you, she's always going to third parties, you know? By which I mean she's always going around and talking to those above me. By which I mean my boss and her boss. Mmmm-hmmmmm..... It's all because she doesn't recognize me as being authoritative. It's jealousy... she's just jealous... everyone on her team has reported her. Every single one. People from other teams have reported her. Hmm."

(Let's hear it for people who interchange adjectives and nouns).

"So I heard you're seeing someone? Is the same one....? Girl, you should be on Jerry Springer, because that's what your love life is like! Always with these stories!"

Can I just say that the first time someone I think of as a friend tells me I should be on Jerry Springer is the last time I speak to them. Thank you.

Act II

In the liquor store picking up a bottle of rum (to make those mojitos I've been planning on making to accompany sitting in the back yard and listening to the zoo animals-- planning since May, mind you), and a tall dude in his late forties with Big Lebowski sort of look comes loping in. He heads straight for the refrigerator and gets out an enormous can of beer. He says to the proprietor, an aging Korean man:

"Hey man, I just rode all the way up here on my bicycle. All the way up that big hill on Connecticut. You know that big hill? That giant hill?"

Proprietor, whose grasp of English is shaky, nods head. Yes, sure, I understand anything you want me to understand now please pay for the beer big hairy bearded guy. But the Dude will not let it go. He is amazed with his bicycle riding prowess. Despite the fact that the hill is not really that much of an achievement. I got the sense that this might have been the first attempt at physical activity for quite a while. So he wouldn't let it go, kept explaining that he had ridden all the way up the hill on Connecticut about fifty times. The older proprietor's son takes over the transaction. He is not encouraging in his response to this story. But the Dude is really impressed with himself.

"I mean... it's hot out there... and I smoke and drink, man. All the way up the Connecticut hill."

It was unclear to me what, exactly, the Dude wanted for this great achievement. Accolades? A free beer? A cookie? What? I knew what I wanted-- for him to get the hell out of the way so I could pay for my rum and go home. The Dude paused uncomfortably long, having already gotten his change, waiting for whatever event he was anticipating was the standard response for such fitness accomplishments.... but the proprietor busied himself with razor blading the price sticker off my bottle of rum, opting not to call down to the mayor's office to request a parade for the Dude through the streets of Adams Morgan. The Dude finally departed... but when I got outside his bicycle was still locked to a sign. Perhaps he'd gone off to find someone else to call up the parade.

Act III

"Pirate! Pirate! Sit!"

"They just aren't used to each other."

"Pirate! Pirate! Sit!"

Pause.

"Pirate! Pirate! Sit! Sit!"

Pirate sits.

"Pirate! Pirate! Down!"

Pirate lays down. Owner stands straight next to the dog. Who is the least like a "pirate" of most animals I can think of. Owner is proud of himself for having a dog that someone else has trained. He (the owner) has good teeth and a tan and is blond, broad-shouldered and tall. His girlfriend is S-shaped and slim and very very very tan. She says nothing. The owner of the other dog is sloppily dressed, but wearing expensive clothes sloppily. I bet they are neighbors. As owner stands talking to other dog owner lady his girlfriend looks bored and Pirate looks expectant. But the owner doesn't seem to have a reward for his good behavior. Actually, he's forgotten that he was supposed to give Pirate something for all that sitting and lying down.

20 July 2006

P drove back across the main drag of Philipsburg and a little ways up
the road until a smaller road appeared on the left. It turned to dirt
and started to switchback up the side of the mountain., passing
abandoned houses and broken down cars that had been stuck rusting in
ditches since the Great Depression along the way. At the top of the
mountain we left the Jeep in a small parking lot next to the spine of a
deer lying picked clean in the grass and head for a couple of small,
tin-roofed (rusted) shacks. We'd reached Granite, Montana.

Granite
was a booming silver mining town in the late nineteenth century that
once had a population of over five thousand people. There was a bank
(whose thick stone walled vault still stands), a large, two storied
miner's hall, schools, saloons, even its own Chinatown/Red Light
district. When, close to the turn of the century, the price of silver
bottomed out, more than three thousand people packed up and left in the
next 24 hours.

Most of the buildings are gone-- the only thing
left standing from the Chinatown is a small shack that looked like it
might have been covering the water pump for the area. But the ground is
littered with broken, thick-bottomed bottles and bits of broken
crockery, and there are rusted rings that once held barrels together
and rusted, holey tin cans are scattered everywhere. Walking towards
the woods from the parking lot the side of the mountain is stepped with
grass covered foundations.

We twice run into other people
visiting the ghost town. The first group- an elderly couple and their
grandchildren- appeared in the house that belonged to Granite's last
resident. The kids stomped through the house, yelling at each other and
their grandparents. Boy: "I'm getting bitten!" (there were a lot of
insects around) He slaps his legs. "Grandmaaaaaaa, gimme something for
the bugs!" Grandma: "I didn't bring any bug spray." Girl:"Oh my God,
Grandma, I can't believe you're that stupid." Boy: "You're and idiot!
Where's the bug spray?! I neeeeeeed it!"

Actually, what I really
think is that those two kids needed to be left in the woods accidentlly
by their grandparents, who should claim to have Alzheimers.

We
stopped at a crooked house that seemed to be peeling back from itself,
one wall at a time, on the way out of town as it started to rain. A
second car pulled up, doors slamming, and we could hear the booming,
English-accented voice of the father of a family on their American
vacation: "You stupid little boy!" Perhaps he should be introduced to
the grandparents up the road.

It started to pour and we hopped
back in the Jeep and headed down the mountain. We stopped near a huge
smokestack towards the bottom of the mountain and P discovered a giant
tunnel in the side of the mountain connected to it. Noted for future
visits, we headed back in the deluge to Missoula.

That night
after dinner we headed to the Top Hat, about which I'd heard stories of
drunken debauchery (it was pretty much exactly as I'd pictured it based
on P's descriptions), and ended the evening at the Oxford, about which
I'd heard even more stories. It was more or less what I'd thought it
would look like, with the exception of the very very bright flourescent
lighting..... Imagine a diner-- counter with metal edges and a fridge
full of pie. It's open 24/7. The back room is full of slot machines.
The walls are covered on one side of the room by a somewhat disturbing
series of painted portraits. I wish I'd been able to take a photograph
of the portraits (or better still, to bring one home), but cameras are
frowned upon in the Oxford.... perhaps it brings back memories of being
booked? There is a perpetual poker game in the window. In dark cases on
the wall a large collection of rifles. At the back of the room is a
barred door where the gimp usually hangs out, trading cash for chips.
The gimp wasn't there, though I definitely got the idea from his cage.

P was disappointed with the apple caramel pie... Not having had a
previous experience with Oxford apple pie to compare it with, I thought
it was pretty good. Oh, what I would give for that portrait of the guy
with the white framed glasses....

19 July 2006

Okay, so the post-July fourth photo outing got rained on. So the last
full day we would be in Montana, well, we were going out to shoot
something, goddamnit.... Philipsburg, hoooooooo!

Philipsburg is
a small town about 75 miles away from Missoula, and was started as a
mining town in the nineteenth century (sapphires, apparently). It has
one of those cutesy downtowns with Olde Time styled signs for stores
and the obligatory salt water taffy in the window candy store. It also
had the obligatory anti-meth entreaty and the cranky old miner... er, goatherd
notice. We didn't get out to the car downtown. Instead, P turned off
the main drag and we drove along a couple of side streets until he
couldn't take my drooling over the decripitude of an abandoned house
and it's peeling, green tar paper covered barn/garage and pulled over.

The
back door was off it's hinges but jammed, so I couldn't get it open
enough to get inside.... but I could see what was in that back room. A
trucker hat hanging on the wall (a real trucker hat, thank you, not
some Ashton Kutchner slumming it hat), a bureau with clothing peeking
out of one of the drawers. A beer mug with dried out soaked cigarette
butts in it. Some animal hide-- an oppossum? I dunno... it was white
and headless-- stretched and dried hanging on the wall. The screen door
at the front was open, but it the door itself was locked. I probably
could have tried harder, but the neighbors houses were all close
(city-sized lots) and I had visions of being caught wandering through
an abandoned house by a Montana sheriff.... Looking through the windows
around the house I could see all kinds of stuff... furniture, books,
clothing, dishes... It really looked like someone went out for milk and
never came back.

A HOT AND HUMID AIRMASS WILL REMAIN IN PLACE ACROSS THE REGIONTODAY. IT WILL BE EVEN MORE HUMID THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENINGCOMPARED TO MONDAY...AND JUST AS HOT. WITH HIGH TEMPERATURESRANGING FROM THE UPPER 90S TO AROUND 100 THIS AFTERNOON...ANDCOMBINED WITH HIGH HUMIDITY...EXPECT MAXIMUM HEAT INDEX VALUESTO RANGE BETWEEN 105 TO 109 DEGREES.

The big news the day after the fourth was a fire that blazed up the
side of Mt. Jumbo, one of the mountains on the edge of town. It is
mostly covered with grass, but one side of the mountain has trees that
lead into the Rattlesnake, so the fire service was out in force to try
to control it. Apparently it had started in someone's backyard from a
home firework display the previous night. We watched the slurry planes
and helicopter drops from the side of the highway for a while, and P
got some good shots of the action.

We headed up Blue Mountain on the other edge of town in search of a location for some images with the bigansterous
that I had an idea for. We did find a couple of spots and got out to do
some set ups. During the second set up we were interrupted by a group
of folf players. Can I just say that this seems like a dumb game? I mean, granted, most games seem kind of silly to me, but this one takes golf--
a game whose supreme silliness is only trumped by croquet-- as its
starting point. Adding frisbees to golf does not improve golf. Calling
unimproved golf played with frisbees "folf" just makes it sound like
the dumbest possible thing one could do with their time. Folf has
raised croquet significantly in my esteem.

But I digress.
Almost immediately after the folf quartet (two couples, one who seemed
to have been together for a while, the other seemed to be on a first,
or at most a second, date. The guy kept attempting to show his folf
prowess and to give his lady pointers. It reminded me of an hilarious
bowling adventure in grad school in which a complete doofus who was
briefly TAing in my department attempted to woo another TA using his
bowling prowess... and failed miserably. But that is a story for
another time.) had interrupted what turned out to be my only outing
this trip with the large format camera it started to rain. At first
just a little... but pretty soon it became apparent that it was time to
pack up and call it a large format day.

That evening I got to
see a little bit of the local (ahem) flavor when we ended up at a local
hotel/bar/casino for karaoke night. (As a side note, Montana
laws/definitions for "casino" are really really really different from
anywhere else I've ever been. Suddenly the descriptions of the family
business that a friend of mine from Montana passed on to me made complete sense.
If you have a bar in Montana you can apparently put a couple of slot
machines in there. And if you have slot machines in there, well hell,
that's a casino. In my mind a casino had huge banks of slot machines,
and more importantly, roulette tables and black jack tables and stuff
like that. But I guess that's cousin I gots them big city ideers that
go along with them big city rules.
Or something.) There weren't a ton of people in there, but those that
were there, were there to sing. Most of the night was taken up with
groups of women singing mostly country songs about cheating men while
women who appeared to be their mothers Texas two-stepped with each
other- an activity I'd never seen live (the two-stepping), but only
recognized from having seen the two-stepping part of the Matthew Barney
film (the second one in the Cremaster Cycle-- the one with Gary Gimore
and Baby Doe whatever and Norman Mailer as Harry Houdini. And yes, I
see the irony inherent in this). There were a number of strained
performances of earnest rock ballads I'd never thought of as karaoke
material (par example: songs by Live)-- I guess I think of karaoke as
being something one doesn't do straight (at least not in this country--
Asian karaoke is an entirely different animal). But this might be
because the only karaoke I've ever done in this country has involved a
lot of cocktails, much hooting and hollering, and "Love Shack."

And then our waitress-- who had been very very concerned
about our intention to pay our bill before leaving (read: she asked us
about once every fifteen minutes if we intended to pay, and quite
literally threatened bodily harm if we didn't)-- was suddenly on stage
with the most confusedly dressed drag queen I've ever seen, singing Margaritaville.
I forget what our waitress's friend's name was. (Actually, I don't
think I ever got it, but P mentioned it the next day). But it was
something outlandish... like Belle or Lulu or something. We'll say
Lulu, just for the sake of the story. Lulu was well over six feet. And
not trim. She was wearing a blond bob wig with bangs that looked like a
blond bob wig with bangs. She had a low voice and men's knees. And she
was dressed like a sixteen year old girl-- short denim skirt, girl cut
t-shirt with one of those shrug things that ties in the front, like
some sort of short sleeved boob sling. At each chorus about half of the
audience would stand up in unison and yell responses- in unison, Rocky
Horror Picture Show style-- back at the stage.

Wastin away again in margaritavilleSearching for my lost shaker of salt

I suddenly felt like I should be sporting a frizzy red wig and yelling "Meatloaf!"

A
couple of songs and two-steps later, the caped woman who'd been sitting
behind P and I, and on whom I'd had my eye (how many people do you
see wearing a cape?) headed for the stage. The music started. And she
began to speak the first words that popped up on the screen. She was
about to do the live version of "Proud Mary."

She was wearing
a white sweat band on her head, Olivia Newton John getting physical
style. And there was that cape. It looked a bit like a dog blanket. P
and I had both noticed when she'd been sitting down that she had a
'tasche any adolescent boy would have been proud of. She made her way
through the ballad-y part of the song. And then, as it began to speed
and heat up, whoosh, she twirled that cape right off to
reveal.... her gym outfit. Seriously. She was a woman of a certain age,
but she was up there in spandex shorts and a sport bra. She probably should
have been singing "Let's Get Physical"-- it was a better fit for her
outfit. Our table, which had been giddy and giggly all night, was
literally stunned into silence. (though, kudos to cape lady, she could
actually carry a tune).

This is the sort of scene that prompts
people who visit New York to shake their heads and say, "Only in New
York." And when I lived in New York I was happy and content knowing
that I lived in a wonderfully kooky place where six foot four Chinese
women will accompany you in singing your Cantonese karaoke ballad and
you can take your mom to dinner at a restaurant where the wait staff is
entirely made up of drag queens who take turns performing cabaret while
you eat. But the more time I spend away from New York, the more that I
realize that the whole damn country is kooky.

17 July 2006

After a perfect morning on the river, with compliant and picturesque
wildlife and an afternoon nap (I love the guiltless napping of
vacations), we followed it up with an evening of the surreal:
Independance Day partying, Montana surburbia style.

I think at
least part of the surreal nature of this excursion was coming to terms
with the idea that there could be such a thing as suburban Montana
(suburban= sub + urban. Where's the urban?), and then grappling with
the manifestation of it, which, with the exception of the ubiquitous
minivan, didn't seem to have a whole lot of cultural overlap with
either the WASP-y or vaguely ethnic and/or Catholic Northeastern
versions of suburbia with which I'm more familiar.

So. It's
the fourth of July and we have options: Option 1-- we go to a
photography student party where we will likely know one person. Option
2-- we go to a suburban cookout where we will likely know one person.
Suburbia here we come.

We headed out to a neighborhood with a
clutch of large, similarly styled houses surrounding an unmowed strip
of tall grass and giant Montana dandilions (picture the fluffy white
ball the size of a baseball) where all of their back yards converged.
There were a couple of paths cut through the grass where people wander
from one neigbor's back yard to another. The uncut bit was called the
"commons." (Ahem)

We arrived at the house of P's friend's friend
and were told by her kids that the party was going on across the
commons (ahem) at their neighbor's house. We looked across and can see
a large group of people in the backyard of a house across the way,
smoke from a grill, and the trail of fireworks being set off from a
staging area on a work table in the yard. As we made our way along the
path cut in the waist deep grass S noted that the grass was from this
year. Last year they set the commons on fire with the fireworks, so
it's only just grown back. P and I shot each other looks.

We
were introduced around and then stood on the balcony on the back of the
house chatting a bit with some of the other people there, but mostly
watching the spectacle. On the deck below two tables of kids sat down,
got up, and milled around in anticipation of the start of the
watermelon eating contest. (I've heard of these things, but I only
actualy encountered this sort of thing in person last year for the
first time at the PG county fair. I guess competitive eating isn't very
popular in New England. Perhaps it's one of those residual Puritan
things. Like the blue laws that were only repealed after I'd moved
away). A band of men drinking beer and psyched teenaged boys
(yeeeeeeah! It blew up!) set the fuses on fireworks set up on the work
table and the explosions punctuated the conversations. There is a
vehicle parked next to the table and members of the group pulled
fireworks out of the back. There was a huge second pile of fireworks on
the deck in case they ran out of stuff in the truck. They had enough
fireworks to set off a huge show that lasted for three straight days.

Besides
the competitive eating and the fireworks (those were illegal where I
grew up) - well, and the Rockies in the background-- it didn't yet seem
all that different from home. S introduced us to the party host. "Well
we've got tons of food, so please take some! There's lots of stuff on
the grill... we've got venison and buffalo and bear on their now, I
think we've got some other game waiting to go on... and there's a
cooler downstairs with beer and wine in it. So please help
youreselves!" We've got bear on the grill. I think words even vaguely like that haven't been spoken in Massachusetts since the seventeenth century.

Just
then a kid with a serious look on his face came up the stairs to the
balcony and was stopped by our host, who snatched the three pointed
frisbee thing the kid had out of his hand. "Does your boomerang come
back?" Kid shook his head no. "Then I think you'd better stop calling
it a boomerang, son.... that's a death star." Er... death star? "The
death star is round." Kid snatches back his death boomerang and stalks
off. "Look out! Look out! Look out!" a rocket thing shot off the table,
turned back towards the house, veered slightly to the side and flopped
around the side yard shooting sparks. A man directly below us was
sitting, relaxed and lackadasical, in a lawn chair, puffed on a cigar
with a beer in hand, called out, "You want me to turn the water on?" He
looked the least likely of anyone at the party to spring into action in
case of an actual emergency. "You want me to turn the water on?" No one
answered him.

Two of the teenaged boys set off a couple of
fireworks that twisted around on the table and then shot off into the
grass of the commons, which it set alight. The two kids ran off into
the grass and started stomping the fire out. Meanwhile, one of the
adult men walked back towards the deck to poke through the pile of
fireworks there, beer in hand. A woman on the balcony shouted down to
him, "Beer and fireworks, that's a great combination." The man looked
up, shook his beer can and nodded, "Yes it is. Hey! (directed at nearby
child) Grab me a beer out of the cooler!" The kid ran off to retrieve
another beer for him. Meanwhile, our host passed by us. "Have you tried
the buffalo?" When we turned back around the beer + fireworks guy was
yelling at his neighbors across the commons (ahem), who also had a
party and a home fireworks display going on, "WHATCHA GOT OVER THERE?"
He then shot a bunch of fireworks that sounded like small artilary in
the direction of the other party. P and I shot each other another look
and started giggling. Apparently the fourth is an occassion when
launching into a small scale, but good natured, war with your neighbor
("THAT ALL YA GOT? HOW'D YOU LIKE THIS?" whistle.... BOOM) is
encouraged.

We headed out before sunset to make it downtown
for the city fireworks display. As we made our way down the stairs the
watermelon eating contest began. Two tables-- one for small children,
the other for middle and high school aged kids (and one adult, a
balding guy with glasses, who had stood, before sitting down to his
quarter melon, near P holding the spiderman "death star" boomerang.
Apparently he popped his eyes out and said, "Spiderman! Spiiiiiiderman!
Spiiiiiiiiiderman!" But only P noticed.) The first person to finish was
a little girl of about eight at the kids table who inhaled her piece,
said nothing, and wandered off. In front of us was a red headed girl of
about twelve who was very very serious about this contest. She began by
pecking. Then she gouged. Then she moved on to the "bite and scrape," a
description given by one of the spectators. She dragged her nose
through the fruit and stopped periodically to wipe her hands quickly on
her shorts and then push her hair, violently, one side at a time,
behind her ears before diving back in. The kid who won had employed the
"bite and scrape," but even after winning he continued to scrape
through the white rind and kept looking up and saying "who won?"

We
headed downtown to watch the fireworks display, and landed at a table
at a local restaurant & had our margaritas on the table just in
time for the start. And what a fireworks show... Who knew that
Missoula, Montana doesn't joke around about their fireworks? This was
no little town show--- it was seriously impressive. Who needs the
crowds of the mall-- the unwashed masses wearing those frigging "You
Don't Know Me" t-shirts with their pink CIA hats when you can see a
great show with the unwashed (no, really) hippie masses of itinerent
stick jugglers in Missoula?

There's a heat warning for today-- it's supposed to hit 100 degrees,
and have a heat index thingy of around 106. The air con in my office
died last Monday. It won't be fixed until at least tomorrow, if not
Wednesday. ug.

Update: It is hooooooooooot in my office.
I have a fan on me and the window open. With the window open I can now
hear the crackheads yelling at each other and themselves. *sigh*

Updated Update: I have cried uncle and gone home to work. Yeay! Feeble AC!

16 July 2006

Independance Day! It's actually a holiday I've been feeling grumpy
about ever since I moved to DC and became a second class citizen. I
mean, goddamnit, how am I supposed to feel a frenzy of patriotism and
delight in the celebration of a freedom won after a war instigated by
the outrage of taxation without representation when I'm taxed without being represented? (Yes, really, residents of the District of Columbia do not have representation in the federal government,
though we pay federal taxes. We fare less well than Puerto Rico, which
has its own governor and merits a certain level of autonomy-- DC is
treated a bit like a retarded child who is a ward of the state-- a lot
of decisions about what goes on in the District that would be dealt
with on the local or state level are decided for us by Congress-- a
body in which we have no representative who can argue for our
interests. Apparently we can't be trusted to make decisions about our
own school system, the use of some city property, etc.)

Which is why it was good for me not
to be in D.C. for the holiday, which, while we have a nice fireworks
display, makes me feel even more grumpy for the invasion of patriotic
tourists from states with representation who stuff the metro cars and
fill the public spaces with their AmericanFlagClothing clad bodies. (Is
there a memo that goes out to the rest of the country telling people
that when they visit the capital they are only allowed to step foot in
public spaces wearing patriotic clothing? It's as though every day is
Halloween and the collective decision was made that everyone would be
attending the costume ball dressed as Uncle Sam. But I digress).

So
for the 4th of July we got up and headed out to a lightening speed
breakfast at a diner that may or may not be located on the exact spot
where Lewis and Clark camped (in other words, it is just like every
square inch of Missoula-- a spot where Lewis and Clark may or may not
have camped). We practically ran out of the restaurant to speed out to
a put in a few interstate exits away for a half-day float down the
Clark Fork river.

I haven't gone white water rafting since the
summer I spent in Oregon, which was... *gasp*... seven years ago. I
loooooooved going out on the rivers that summer, and have sparkling
memories of the most perfect rafting day ever on the North Umpqua
(which has a bunch of class IIIs and a couple of class IVs). The water
is running low on the Clark Fork this time of year, so it was a pretty
mellow trip (paddles lifted a dozen times tops), but the weather was
perfect-- sunny, warm but not hot. The water was cool but not too cold,
and I got in a little swimming (or bobbing along in my life vest
anyway).

My DC baseball hat was strangely popular, as it
turned out that one of the river guides lives in DC the rest of the
year, another is from northern Virginia and lives in Montana now, and
the third-- our guide, who was from northern Georgia-- has family in
northern VA and knows the area. Go figure-- I head out to Montana to
bump into people I can probably find in Adams Morgan come September.

But
the high point of the trip was seeing the wildlife along the river--
white tailed deer and marmot, and most impressively, bald eagles. Not
just one, but two. On the fourth of July.